The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1887-11-03

9 lazy bone in your body. Don't 1
know that we'll? But look now: Ill
were to pay you thirty, should have
to pay all the other hewers thirty.
and that's not all. Scorers aud
teamsters and road.cutters are used
10 getting wages in proportion to
newers. Why, it would cost me a
Thousand dollars q month to give you
thirtyl Go along now, that's q good
hired with me-"
But Peter did not 20 back. "l'm
bound to have my rights, go I am"
he said sulkily. to Mary Ann when he
reached his cabin. 1.-The old boss is
getting too hard like, and too set on
money. Twenty-Five dollars! No!
III 20 in to Stambrook and hire"
Mary Ann knew that she might as
we'll try to convince saw-log that it's
proper course was up stream as to
protest against Peters obstinacy.
Moreover. she did think the
offered wages very low. and had
some hope he might better himself;
but when he came back from SIAM
brook, she saw trouble ahead. He
did not tell her that there, where his
merits were not known, he had been
offered only twenty dollars, but she
surmised his disappointment.
YOU'D better be after seeing the
boss again, maybe, Peter, DEAR" she
said. timidly.
"Not a STEP" he answered. 1.-THE
boss'l be after me in a few day 3, you'll
see." But there he was mistaken, for
all the gangs were full.
After that Peter McGrath tramped
far and wide, to many a backwoods
hamlet, looking vainly for a Job at
any wages. The season was the worst
ever known on the river, and before
January the shanties were discharg.
ing men. 80 threatening was tho out
look for lumbermen, and so glutted
with timber the markets of the world.
Peters conscience accused him every
hour, but he was too stubborn to 20
back to John Pontiac. Indeed, he
soon got it into his stupid head that
the old boss was responsible for his
misfortunes, and he consequently
came to hate Mr.. Pontiac very bitter
ly.
After supping on his pipeful of to-
bacco.dust, Peter sat, straight-back-
ed, leaning elbows on knees and chin
on hands, wondering what on earth
was to become of them all next day.
For a man out of work there was not
q dollar of credit at the little village
store; and work! why. there was only
one kind of work at which money
could be earned in that district in
winter.
When his wife took number Eleven's
cradle into the other room, she heard
him. through the thin partition of up.
right boards. pasted over with news.
papers, moving round in the DIM red,
Pickering light from the stove grating
The children were all asleep or pre-
tending it; Number Ten, in the big
straw bed, where she lay always be-
tweer her parents; Number Eleven in
her cradle beside; Nine crosswise at
the foot; Eight, Seven, Six. Five and
four in the other bed; one. Two and
Three curled up, without taking off
their miserable garments, on clocks"
of straw beside the kitchen stove.
Mary Ann knew very we'll what Pc
ter was moving round for. She heard
him groan. so low that he did not
know he groaned, when he lifted off
the cover of the meal barrel, and could
feel nothing whatever therein. She
had actually beaten the meal out of
the cracks to make that last pot OF
mush. He knew that all the fish he
had sailed down in the summer we're
gone. that the flour was all out. that
the last morsel OF the piS had been
eaten up long ago. but he went to each
OF the barrels as though he could not
realize that there was really nothing
LIFT. There were four of those low
groans.
ooh God, help him! Do help! please
do! she kept saying to herself. Some
way, all her sutferings and the chill
dren's were so light to HERTZ compari.
son, as she listened to that big, tact
turn man groan, and him sore with
the hunger!
When at last she came out, Pc.
ter was not there. He had gone out
silently. so silently that she wondered,
and was scared. She opened the door
very softly. and there he was. leaning
on the rail fence between their little
rocky plot and the great river. She
closed the door as softly, and sat
down.
There was wide steaming space in
the river, where the current ran too
swiftly for any ice to form. Peter
gazed on it q long while. The mist
had a friendly look; he was soon re-.
minded of the steam from an inn
mense bowl of mush! 1t vexed him.
He looked up at the moon. The
moon was certainly knocking him;
da shing through light clouds, then
jumping out into wide, clear space,
where itsoon became motionless, and
Knocked HIM steadily.
&C to jee: any one, but there was his face
inthat moon-Peter made it out quite
clearly. He looked up the road to
where he could see, on the hill half a
mile distant, the simmer of John
Pontiac's big, tin-roofed house. He
thought he could make out the out
lines OF all the buildings,-he knew
them so vel, the big barn, the sta
bic, the smokehouse, the storehouse
for shantv supplies.
Pork barrels, -four barrels, herring
kegs, syrup kegs, sides OF frozen beef,
hams and flitches of bacon in the
smokehouse, bag of beans, chests OF
tea-he had had a vision of them all!
Transfers going off TO the woods
daily with provisions, the supply ap-
parently inexhaustibIe.
And John Pontiac had refused to
pay him fair wages!
Peter in transportation shook his big
fist at the moon; it Knocked him worse
than ever. Then out to the space of
mist-it was still more painfully like
mush steam. His pig-sty was empty,
except OF snow; 1t made HIM think
again of the empty barrels in the cab
in.
The children empty too, or would
be to.morrow-as empty as he felt
that minute. How dumbly the der
ones would reproach him! and what
would comfort the younger ones cry
ing with hunger?
Peter looked again up the hill,